Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Joy Chan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Joy, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
I work with the media, film, video and sound. My work has been focusing on the idea of material witnessing and image reading. By collecting moments of images and sound, I compose the stories of people’s life, then display them to challenge forgetfulness.
As a video artist / sound designer, I spend a lot of time observing and perceiving before digesting with rationality. In the video installation work, The Outfall: A Wasteland of Mud (2022), I spent over a year doing fieldwork, capturing film photography and collecting water samples from 7 rivers in Kuala Lumpur (the Capital of Malaysia) before I turned the materials into artwork. During the creation of this piece, a lot of time was spent on researching and visiting the site, which includes works of field trip and street interviews. While on site, I lingered with the landscape, the touch of the soil and water, as well as the scent of sound that wraps the environment. The actual action of being present to the landscape allows me to stay aware and attentive to the places we inhabit, the places that shape who we are. It empowers me to capture the abstract inspiration and transform it into artwork.
Later in the process, by burying the film negatives in the soil and water samples, decay happened and is displayed on the film negatives and tells the story of the city itself. In this project I try to confront the water pollution of rivers that has been happening in the city for decades. We forget and ignore, but I hope my work captures and makes people remember.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a Malaysian video artist/sound designer based in Los Angeles who works among film, video and installation. My audio/visual art work has been featured by VICE Asia, and been screened in several international film festivals such as SeaShorts, Indie Film Fest as well as exhibited in galleries like Exp+ Photo, Zontiga, MOMA Beijing.
Being a Malaysian who moved abroad for most of her life has raised my curiosity in the concepts of physical and mental spaces, home as well as the sense of belonging, and has empowered my artistic creation. In my own practice as well as everyday life, I tend to observe the interaction between places and people, and the way people inhabit and/or occupy spaces. The most exciting part of perceiving the world as a video artist/sound designer is that you are trained to be observant of the unseen, unheard, unnoticed, and transform them into stories to be learned. Referring to my aspiration, the renowned filmmaker Agnès Varda, making films is a kind of gleaning, “which is artistic gleaning. You pick ideas, you pick images, you pick emotions from other people, and then you make it into a film.”
I witness, and I glean.
As a freelance sound designer, I blend creative storytelling with technical expertise in narratives and viewing experience. I am a strong and professional support to film projects, and am eager to meet more like-minded artists to create work together.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Resilience, Curiosity and Observance have been the most impactful qualities I have learnt along my journey. There will always be winding roads yet these three qualities will always lead you back on track. I have been blessed to stay mindful and to actually step back from working while I need to. Going out for a walk or taking a trip to nature with open eyes has been helpful for me in regaining peace and confidence while facing burnouts or creativity blocks. Carrying curiosity and observance while enjoying the process of getting lost, you will harvest things that are beyond the current situation and get you back into your passion. For me, that is resilience.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
While feeling overwhelmed or losing faith in making art, I would think back to the book A Field Guide to Getting Lost which was a gift from my MFA mentor. Written as a series of autobiographical essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Rebecca Solnit’s life to explore issues of uncertainty, trust, loss, memory, desire, and place. In this book, Solnit shares her experience of getting lost and the learning process of enjoying being lost. Getting lost is a wander in an unintended path with unexpected landscape, a journey of observation and redirection. Her thinking of embracing the journey of being lost encourages me to see the process that might seem to be frustrating in another perspective, to enjoy the wander of being lost intentionally.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vimeo.com/joychan
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joyuzu/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joy-chan-9765a5162/
